Did you ever start a project thinking, "this will be quick and easy." Yeah, that was me this week. I had this little mail organizer I bought at a yard sale for just $1. I wanted to paint it and make it all pretty in my own Lewisville style. It should only took me a day, just a few hours... so I thought. But I tell you, this mail organizer had it in for me from the beginning. What could go wrong- did go wrong. It's a conspiracy I tell you.

But I persevered and got it done. Here it is ...two days, painted, sanded, repainted, aggravated (that's me), but done!

So it started out like any other project- Spray Paint! This is easy and had I just left it here to be simply one color, it would have looked just fine. But I wasn't going for fine. I was going for unique, mine, one of a kind..and that's where the trouble came.

I started with painting the key holders. They were a gold brass color and I wanted silver. So I went tape crazy and spray painted those hooks silver. That was easy.

Next, I taped the key hooks once they were dry and spray painted the rest of the organizer white. Again- this was easy.

See, right there it would have been fine and this post would be over. I had this "idea" though and wanted to design my mail organizer. With the heat here, painting hasn't been possible during the summer. So now that it's finally cooling off, I was just itching to get back to painting and getting a little creativity going.

I found a pack of stencils at Walmart and wanted to use one of the designs on my little project. The stencil I wanted looked like this { }. I was going to put the numbers inside, but the stencil was too big. UGH. Ok, we'll just switch it to this label looking stencil. I can live with that.

You can see I taped off the organizer for the "other" stencil. Oh well. Moving on. I used a grey pewter craft paint to fill in the stencil.

I also learned that craft paint does NOT work well on top of spray paint. Never again will I make this mistake. It was hard to work with, but I got through it.

The lines weren't crisp enough though....one of the problems with working with paper stencils. So I decided to outline it...with a black sharpie.

Now the problems really started. I wanted to put numbers in the middle of the label space, but I didn't have stencils for this. I prefer numbers instead of words like "mail", "bills", "misc". I know what's in my organizer but I don't necessarily want everyone else to know who's walking through. With numbers, I can use it differently later if I choose. Maybe it will be for my kids schoolwork later or used for my personal files. Either way, numbers work better for me. So I made a 1, 2, and 3 stencil on my computer and printed it on card stock.

I cut the numbers out with a box cutter to make my own stencils. I'm now at the point where I'm thinking this is getting to be too much. But wait; there's more.

Now, I just had to paint the inside of my number stencils with white paint, but when it was all done....I didn't like the results- AT ALL. The paint didn't look right. UGH.

So I had to sand it down again, trying to stay inside the lines of the grey label. Then I had to re-paint the label grey and wait for it to dry. Re-outline with the sharpie was next and I still had to figure out what I was going to do for 1, 2, 3 without running out to buy number stencils. I decided to just glue on those black printed numbers I cut out with my box cutter. Mod Podge to the rescue.

I glued the printed numbers on and hung up my mail organizer.

Not bad, but I wanted a little pizzazz, a little something sparkly. I decided to add a little design to the sides.
Hello again stencils.

I tried black paint and it looked Terrible with a capital T. I didn't even take a picture of it because it was so bad. I know I should have used plastic stencils, but I figured I was already on roll with all my mistakes. Why change things now. This mistake cost me more time. I had to sand down that black paint and spray paint that area over again. Finally, I decided to outline it with my sharpie marker. If I didn't like it, I could always sand, re-paint, and cry later.

I liked the results actullay...finally. I might paint them in later, maybe not. I'm also thinking about switching my numbers from black to white (you can see I'm testing that out here). What do you think? Either way, I'm done...for now. This was supposed to be a quick, 1-2 hour project. Instead, it took 2 days and a lot of frustration.
But it's done now...Yeah! And I'm a little more organized...Yeah!

I hope you can use this post to keep you from making all my painting mistakes. That's why I'm here...to make the mistakes for you so you can do it right!
And one more time just because...and for a better Pinterest picture...